FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Oct. 3 2024
Media Contact: Aaron Pelo, apelo@miaflcio.org | 734.355.2741
Michigan AFL-CIO Slams Trump for Attacking Unions, Overtime… Again
LANSING, Mich. – Today, at a rally at Saginaw Valley State University, Trump bragged once again about how he hated to pay workers overtime and would actively avoid paying it. He said the same thing just earlier this week at a rally in Pennsylvania. During Thursday’s Michigan rally, Trump also repeated attacks on Michigan union leaders.
“Trump came to our state today to boast about scabbing and trash unions,” said Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron BIEBER. “The fact that he continues to show his face in union states when his contempt for organized labor is now a staple in his stump speech is revolting. Trump’s lie to workers about protecting our jobs is the same bridge he tried to sell back in 2016. Now he’s not only lying to union workers, he’s spitting in our face while doing it.”
The Detroit News exposed Trump’s hollow promises to protect auto jobs earlier this week. The number of auto jobs in Michigan, even before the outbreak of COVID-19, declined on Trump’s watch, and plants like General Motors’ Warren transmission plant shuttered despite Trump’s promise that Michigan wouldn’t lose one plant.
The Trump Project 2025 agenda proposes changing the overtime rules in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to allow employers to compensate overtime with paid time off instead of overtime pay. Project 2025 also suggests that the current federal overtime rules allow too many low-income workers in the South to qualify for overtime, and also wants to change the way that overtime is calculated to allow employers to combine weeks in order to avoid paying overtime.
The Michigan AFL-CIO, Michigan’s largest labor organization, is a federation representing forty different labor organizations, eighteen different central labor councils, and eight constituency groups representing over 1 million union members and their families.
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